


Sour Grapes and Leaf-Green Capes

by nimblermortal



Series: Sour Grapes and Leaf-Green Capes [1]
Category: Bletchley Circle
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimblermortal/pseuds/nimblermortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millie's in denial about a lot of things, but none of them is that she would still do anything for Susan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sour Grapes and Leaf-Green Capes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellia/gifts).



Millie hated Timothy. She realized, though she refused to admit it, that this was irrational. She loathed him. In her more deluded, rationalizing moments, she told herself that it was on Susan’s behalf: He married Susan. Inimitable Susan, who was going to be and should have been Millie’s - the consolation prize for not being Susan, who was so effortlessly, unwittingly more than everyone else that she could turn her drab and weary housewife life into an adventure greater than anything Millie might have found on another continent. All those adventures they spoke of and dreamed about, that Millie lived, paled in comparison with a small house, a husband up for promotion and two children that Millie knew, because she had heard it from a thousand housewives before, were the best things that ever happened to Susan.

Millie had never wanted children. There was no way she could be jealous of Susan. (There was no way she could not be jealous of Susan.) She ought to have hated Susan, but there was no way she could hate brilliant Susan, even when Susan was sitting across from her and carefully babbling across every portion of the conversation that they both knew was leading to where their lives should have gone.

(Millie hated herself for thinking ‘could have gone’ first.)

 

Claire and Sam came pattering through the front door, not stopping to look to either side as they raced for the kitchen where Susan had set out their after-school snacks for them. Millie looked after them - longingly, she hoped, rather than whatever else might be showing on her face. She had an excuse now, of course; there weren’t enough men to go around anymore.

“Claire and Sam are the best things that ever happened to you, aren’t they?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” Susan said. “You girls and Bletchley Park are the best things that ever happened to me. Claire and Sam are the best things that ever happened to...” She stopped, not sure how to finish her sentence, and her forehead was wrinkled in the same way it did when she had a particularly complex problem to analyze, the way that first made Millie realize she wanted to slide across Susan’s desk and plant a kiss on her face.  _Surprise_ those wrinkles away, for all she loved them the way she loved everything Susan did.

“The best things that ever happened?” Millie suggested, lightly, because she didn’t want Susan to notice how her heart was hammering.  _You girls and Bletchley Park_.

“To me and Timothy,” Susan decides on, at last. “It’s different, when you’re married. When you’re a girl, it is all about you and anything that happens can be the best thing that ever happened to you. Once you’re married, it’s never only about you.”

_Don’t be stupid,_ Millie wanted to shout at her.  _Everything is always and only about you, Susan. Don’t you realize that?_ She couldn’t stop herself from asking, in the same way she was always saying things she didn’t mean to, “Then what about Malcolm Crowley?”

“Oh,” said Susan. Millie was quite sure she had won, that she had found that little bit of Susan that knew she couldn’t be contained by the walls of a conventional life. Not Susan, not ever! It was a miracle that she had lasted nine years, the Susan who had broken codes and sent armies marching and promised to make her mark in red lipstick across a map of the world - that Susan sitting quietly at home knitting jumpers and cooking soups was laughable. It was like casting Jack Churchill as the proprietor of a china shop or Lord Byron as a fussy old aunt. And Millie had been right - the real Susan had found Malcolm Crowley to lead her out of this wreck of a world.

“You do realize that Malcolm Crowley was killing young women, don’t you?” Susan asked. “I can’t let my children grow up in that world, not when I can do something about it.”

“You’re not doing this to make the world safer for Claire and Sam,” Millie said, and regretted it instantly. If Susan needed Claire and Sam for her excuse, then Millie did not mean to snap the thread that allowed Susan to do what she needed to.

“Why else would I do it?” Susan asked.

“Because you’re brilliant,” Millie said. “Because you’re amazing and you know it and you can’t just let it go to waste.”

“Don’t I get to decide what is wasting my talent?” Susan asked. “That’s why Bletchley Park was the best thing that happened to me, Millie; it let me know that I could decide.”

“And you still chose Timothy,” Millie said, and of course she sounded bitter, how else was she supposed to sound?

“I love Timothy,” Susan said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’m sorry I didn’t go with you, Millie. I found other things needed doing.”

She wasn’t sorry. Millie had seen that when she had first seen Susan again, when Susan had seen how and where she lived, when the relief was clear as could be on her face - that she pitied Millie, that she was so glad she hadn’t followed up on her offer, her  _promise_. And hadn’t that hurt. And hadn’t Millie still jumped at the chance to follow her again.

“I should be going,” Millie said. She couldn’t help being satisfied with the embarrassed regret on Susan’s face.

“Wait,” said Susan, laying a hand on her arm before Millie had quite pulled her purse onto her lap. Millie stilled, looking at Susan. She hated what that hand still did to her, and that she still couldn’t help hoping. “If I find other things needing doing...”

“Is Timothy all right with that?” Millie said, because she was not a nice person, she was not  _Susan_.

“He will be,” Susan said. “I have to... talk him over about Crowley yet.”

“He won’t be happy that I was here, will he,” Millie said.

“No,” said Susan. There was happiness running like mad in Millie’s heart, that Susan would still do that for her. And not a hint of shame or secrecy about it, or she would have rushed Millie out before the children could see her. She’d bring them gifts, next time - surely they were as bright as Susan, perhaps Claire could use some - “You’ll come? If I need you?” Susan asked.

“Call me,” Millie promised. She’d come like anything. They all would, even Lucy.


End file.
